John Oliver bought Russell Crowe’s leather jockstrap — and he wants it to go to Blockbuster

John Oliver is the superfan who placed the now-notorious high bid on Russell Crowe’s “Cinderella Man” jockstrap. He also bought a bunch of other “pointless Russell Crowe memorabilia” from the actor’s bizarre “Art of Divorce” auction a few weeks ago — and he’s offering it to a Blockbuster Video store. In the final segment of Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight,” after talking about President Trump, corporate taxes and MSNBC host Ari Melber’s penchant for hip-hop lyrics, Oliver turned his attention to that store, one of Alaska’s most endangered resources. “We seem to be rapidly losing something I didn’t even know we had,” he quipped, baffled by the store’s continued existence. So he set out to save it. The HBO host explained that despite the once-mighty rental franchise filing for bankruptcy in 2010, a wee handful of brick-and-mortar stores still operate in the U.S. under independent ownership. A number of them are in the Land of the Midnight Sun, because the state’s spotty internet service hampers streaming (which led to the demise of the chain in the first place). Enter Crowe’s “Art of Divorce” auction. Oliver revealed that it was he and his show who placed the $7,000 bid on the “leather groin protector from ‘Cinderella Man,’” among a slew of other items from the boxing biopic. “It was 4 a.m. over here, and you know what happens when you start online shopping late at night?” Oliver asked. “This was very much one of those times. We didn’t just get a jockstrap,… [Read full story]